They sometimes spent seven years on a desert islet doing penance for a single sin. They often passed a lifetime on a rock in the midst of the ocean, alone with God, and enjoying no communion but that of their conscience.
Who knows how many thousands of men have led such a life, shocking, indeed, to the feelings of worldlings, but in reality devoted to the contemplation of what is above Nature—a life, consequently, exalted and holy?
Passing from the solitudes to the numerous hives where the bees of primitive Christianity in Ireland were busy at work constructing their combs and secreting their honey, what do we see? People generally imagine that all monastic establishments have been alike; that those of mediaeval times were simply the reproduction of earlier ones. An abbot, the three vows, austerity, psalmody, study—such are the general features common to all; but those of Ireland had peculiarities which are worthy of examination. We shall find in them a stronger expression of the supernatural, perhaps; certainly a more heavenly cast, a greater forgetfulness of the world, its manners and habits, its passions and aims.
Patrick had learned all he knew of this holy life in the establishment of Lerins, wherein the West reflected more truly than it ever did subsequently the Oriental light of the great founders of monasticism in Palestine and Egypt.
The first thing to be remarked is the want, to a great extent, of a strict system. The Danes, when Christianized, and the Anglo- Normans, introduced this afterwards; but the genius of the Irish race is altogether opposed to it, and the Scandinavian races in following ages could hardly ever bring them under the cold uniformity of an iron rule.
Did St. Patrick establish a rule in the monasteries which he founded? Did St. Columba two centuries later? Did any of the great masters of spiritual life who are known to have exercised an influence on the world of Irish convents? Not only has nothing of the kind been transmitted to us, but no mention of it is made in the lives of holy abbots which we possess.1 (1 The "Irish Penitentials," quoted at length in Rev. Dr. Moran's "Early Irish Church," are not monastic rules, although many canons have reference to monks.) St. Columbanus's rule is the only one which has come down to us; but the monasteries founded by him were all situated in Burgundy, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy—that is to say, out of Ireland, out of the island of saints. He was compelled to furnish his monasteries with a written rule, because they were surrounded by barbarous peoples, some of whom his establishments often received as monks, and to whom the holiness of Ireland was unfamiliar or utterly unknown. But why should the people of God, living in his devoted island, redeemed as soon as born by the waters of baptism, be shackled by enactments which might serve as an obstacle to the action of the Holy Ghost on their free souls?
According to the common opinion, each founder of a monastery had his own rule, which he himself was the first to follow in all its rigor; if disciples came, they were to observe it, or go elsewhere; if, after having embraced it, they found themselves unable to keep it to the letter, the abbot was indulgent, and did not impose on them a burden which they could no longer bear, after having first proved their willingness to practise it.
Thus, it is reported that St. Mochta was the only one who practised his own rule exactly, his monks imitating him as well as they could. St. Fintan, who was inclined to be severe, received this warning in a vision: "Fight unto the end thyself; but beware of being a cause of scandal to others, by requiring all to fight as thou doest, for one clay is weaker than another."
Thus, every founder, every abbot even, left to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, practised austerities which in our days of self- indulgence seem absolutely incredible, and showed themselves severe to those under their authority. But this severity was tempered by such zeal for the good of souls, and consequently by such an unmistakable charity, that the penitent monk carried his burden not only with resignation, but with joy. This, in after- ages, became a characteristic feature of Irish monasticism.
The life of Columba is full of examples of this holy severity. In St. Patrick's life we read that Colman died of thirst rather than quench it before the time appointed by his master.